Bye-Bye, Bottle

I'm so excited to announce that we have easily, almost magically, even accidentally taken the bottle out of Ziva's life. I had planned on breaking her of the habit over the summer, knowing that she wouldn't need or be able to have one at school this fall. She was already down to just one bottle a day at bedtime, so I didn't think it would be too hard, but then the summer ended being much crazier than we expected, and I've always heard that babies and toddlers can only handle one big change at a time. So between packing, moving, a visit from Grandma, a vacation to Chicago, and starting a new school year that brought several big changes with it, there was never a good time to pack the bottles away. I had heard that if you don't take the bottle away by 18 months, it becomes a hard and fast habit that's much tougher to break. So as 18 months snuck up on us, I was feeling a little worried about how Ziva would handle not getting a bedtime bottle. And then, lo and behold, God in all His wisdom and mercy let Ziva get a cough. Sounds strange, I know, but let me explain....we wanted Ziva to sleep, and since milk always makes her cough worse, toward the end of last week I started offering her a bottle with just water in it. She would drink a tiny bit, and then be ready for bed. We did that for three nights. On the 4th night, she didn't want the bottle of water at all, so I put her straight to bed and she did fine. Slept great, as a matter of fact! And I realized after that night (which was just Monday), that perhaps we had broken the bottle habit without even realizing it! So last night, I didn't offer a bottle at all, and she didn't protest or even seem to notice, and went straight to sleep. Hallelujah! I hope any and all of our future kids are this easy!